It was the last day ever of a six o'clock finish in the plant centre for my colleague who is off to Cambridge Botanic this autumn, and he was gloating about it as we trooped into our staff hut this morning. I have one more to go, but he has done more of them than I have, being full time.
The owners were nowhere to be seen, but were about somewhere, since when I answered the phone mid-morning to a caller asking to speak to the boss, and warned him as I reached for my radio that I hadn't had sight or sound of the boss so far, the caller said that he was returning the boss's call of five minutes ago. However, apart from a muttered 'thanks' on the radio, and human cries from the garden late on after the paying visitors had gone home, we heard nothing of our employers all day.
My task was to put some climbers out for sale, which didn't take very long, especially since one of my colleagues kindly picked them up off the grass and loaded them into silver trollies for me before I could get that far. There was a red trolley to do as well, though not on my list, but I did most of it anyway, since the chances of my colleague finishing tidying all the roses and then having time to deal with the red trolley seemed remote.
Trade is tailing off for the summer. I was surprised, looking at the tills first thing, to see how much they did yesterday, given that it drizzled most of the time, but we scarcely did any better today, despite the fact that it was the weekend, and quite a nice day.
A beekeeping friend called in, following a visit to the RSPB wildlife garden at Flatford. He gave me a nesting box for wild bees last year, which he assembled himself using hollow tubes bought by mail order from a specialist wildlife supplier, packed inside a length of drainpipe and stoppered at one end with a plastic bottle end. Some species of wild bees lay their eggs in hollow stems, for which the tubes are a substitute, provisioning them with food and sealing each tube up to protect the young bees. Experiments in his own garden had convinced him that it was essential to mount the drainpipe where it would receive full sun.
I sincerely meant to put it up come the spring, and then failed to get round to it, because there were so many other things to do. I had to confess to my omission yesterday, because he e-mailed asking how many tubes were in use. The good news is that although I have missed the red mason bees for this year, leafcutter bees are only just emerging now from their winter quarters, and looking for places to lay eggs. Apparently mason bees complete their development to adulthood in the same year that the eggs are laid, and overwinter in their nesting tubes as mature bees, while leafcutter bees spend the winter as grubs, and only pupate and complete their development shortly before they emerge.
Addendum The letter O has suddenly got very sticky on my laptop, so if you n*tice any missing Os in this p*st, that's where they've g*ne.
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